Stories of Ourselves: "The Fly in the Ointment" by V.S. Pritchett

Along the road to the main station, at intervals of two hundred yards or so, unemployed men and one or two beggars were dribbling slowly past the desert of public buildings to the next patch of shop fronts.

It was his father’s last day at his factory, the last day of thirty years’ work and life among these streets, building a business out of nothing, and then, after a few years of prosperity, letting it go to pieces in a chafer of rumour, idleness, quarrels, accusations and, at last, bankruptcy.

It was his father’s last day at his factory, the last day of thirty years’ work and life among these streets, building a business out of nothing, and then, after a few years of prosperity, letting it go to pieces in a chafer of rumour, idleness, quarrels, accusations and, at last, bankruptcy.

‘Hullo, old chap. This is very nice of you, Harold,’ said the old man shyly, stepping back from the door to let his son in, and lowering his pleased, blue eyes for a second’s modesty.

Through another door was what had been the showroom, where the son remembered seeing his father, then a dark-haired man, talking in a voice he had never heard before, a quick, bland voice, to his customers.

He was a vigorous, broad man with a pleased impish smile.

He was a vigorous, broad man with a pleased impish smile.

The son beside him was round-shouldered and shabby, a keen but anxious fellow in need of a hair-cut and going bald.

He despised his son, who was, in fact, not a professor but a poorly paid lecturer at a provincial university.

He despised his son, who was, in fact, not a professor but a poorly paid lecturer at a provincial university.

‘This used to be my room, do you remember, it used to be my office. Take a chair. We’ve still got a chair. The desk’s gone, yes, that’s gone, it was sold, fetched a good price – what was I saying?’ he turned a bewildered look to his son.

Things have been sold for the liquidators and they’ve cleaned out nearly everything.

Haven’t lost sixpence and found a shilling have you, because I wouldn’t mind doing that?

‘I’m not worried about anything. I’m just worried about you. This’ – he nodded with embarrassment to the dismantled showroom, the office from which even the calendars and wastepaper-basket had gone – ‘this’ – what was the most tactful and sympathetic word to use? – ‘this is bad luck,’ he said.

‘Bad luck?’ said the old man sternly.

‘I mean,’ stammered his son, ‘I heard about the creditors’ meeting. I knew it was your last day – I thought I’d come along, I...to see how you were.’

‘Very sweet of you, old boy,’ said the old man with zest.

‘Listen to me a moment. I want you to get this idea,’ said his father, his warm voice going dead and rancorous and his nostrils fidgeting.

There was the outer face like a soft warm and careless daub of innocent sealing-wax and inside it, as if thumbed there by a seal, was a much smaller one, babyish, shrewd, scared and hard.

There was the outer face like a soft warm and careless daub of innocent sealing-wax and inside it, as if thumbed there by a seal, was a much smaller one, babyish, shrewd, scared and hard.

‘I am sixty-five. I don’t know how long I shall live, but let me make this clear: if I were not an optimist I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t stay another minute.’

And Moore, he’s lost everything. He’s got his chauffeur, but it’s his wife’s money. Did you see Beltman in the trade papers? Quarter of a million deficit.

The whole train, the old man said, was practically packed with bankrupts every morning.

‘You’ve got to realise, old boy,’ he said gravely, ‘the world’s changing. You’ve got to move with the times.’

So short the hair was that the father’s ears protruded and, framed against that reflection of the window bars, the father suddenly took (to his son’s fancy) the likeness of a convict in his cell and the son, startled, found himself asking: Were they telling the truth when they said the old man was a crook and that his balance sheets were cooked?

So short the hair was that the father’s ears protruded and, framed against that reflection of the window bars, the father suddenly took (to his son’s fancy) the likeness of a convict in his cell and the son, startled, found himself asking: Were they telling the truth when they said the old man was a crook and that his balance sheets were cooked?

‘You’ve been doing too much. You’re worried,’ said the son, soft with repentance and sympathy.

‘You know – ’ the father said uneasily, flitting a glance at the fly on the ceiling as if he wanted the fly as well as his son to listen to what he was going to say – ‘you know,’ he said, ‘the world’s all wrong. I’ve made my mistakes. I was thinking about it before you came. You know where I went wrong? You know where I made my mistake?’

Don’t oblige me to say we know all about it, that we have known for years the mess you’ve been in, that we’ve seen through the plausible stories you’ve spread, that we’ve known the people you’ve swindled.

Don’t oblige me to say we know all about it, that we have known for years the mess you’ve been in, that we’ve seen through the plausible stories you’ve spread, that we’ve known the people you’ve swindled.

The son was appalled.

‘You want money even for that,’ the son said irritably. ‘You want quite a lot of money to do that.’

‘Don’t say I want money,’ the old man said vehemently.

‘Don’t say it. When I walk out of this place tonight I’m going to walk into freedom. I am not going to think of money. You never know where it will come from. You may see something. You may meet a man. You never know. Did the children of Israel worry about money? No, they just went out and collected the manna. That’s what I want to do.’

‘I’m not rich. None of us is. In fact, with things as they are we’re all pretty shaky and we can’t do anything. I wish I could, but I can’t. But’ – after the assured beginning he began to stammer and to crinkle his eyes timidly – ‘but the idea of your being – you know, well short of some immediate necessity, I mean – well, if it is ever a question of – well, to be frank, cash, I’d raise it somehow.’

He was ashamed to think how he, how they all dreaded having the gregarious, optimistic, extravagant, uncontrollable, disingenuous old man on their hands.

He was ashamed to think how he, how they all dreaded having the gregarious, optimistic, extravagant, uncontrollable, disingenuous old man on their hands.

He was ashamed to think how he, how they all dreaded having the gregarious, optimistic, extravagant, uncontrollable, disingenuous old man on their hands.

He leaned forward brusquely on the table and somehow a silver-topped pencil was in his hand preparing to note something briskly on a writing-pad.

He leaned forward brusquely on the table and somehow a silver-topped pencil was in his hand preparing to note something briskly on a writing-pad.